Never content to let go of a golden goose, Disney keeps
straining every last penny from their Pirates of the Caribbean
franchise, starring Johnny Depp as the unscrupulous Captain Jack Sparrow. The
fifth installment hits theaters this Memorial Day weekend with Pirates of
the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

The story involves Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), the son
of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swan (Kiera Knightly) and his quest
to release dad from being cursed as a pirate captain of a doomed ghost ship. His
mission is to find Poseidon’s trident, a mythical instrument that will break
all ocean curses. Another new character named Carina (Kaya Scoledario), an
orphan whose mysterious father left her a map – is after the same trident.
Their paths cross with Sparrow (Depp), who is down on his luck with his scant
crew trying to rob a bank (the actual bank building, not just the money inside).
Hot on Jack’s tail is Spanish Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) and his ghost
crew who were cursed by Sparrow’s antics decades earlier. Salazar enlists the
help of Captain Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush) to track Sparrow, who has joined with
Henry and Carina to find the trident before the bad pirates get it.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is
an honest attempt to return to the franchise’s roots, when the first film was
released in 2003. All the same elements are there: a young man in search of
redemption for his father, a young clever woman as a love interest, a scalawag
comical pirate, and a large dose of magical pirate lore to create the story’s
main conflict. There are moments when some of that 2003 magic is recaptured,
but it’s nothing we haven’t already seen in all the other Pirates
movies, leaving the humor and story a little stale, like low tide. Depp’s shtick
as the loopy Sparrow isn’t anything new, either.

Matching the 2003 formula also doesn’t work when you factor
the loose storytelling in Pirates 5: DMTNT. It seems there is too much
pirate lore to keep up with, and the sparse dialogue available between all that
computer-generated special effects, you can lose track, especially since the
story timeline line falls right after the events of Pirates 3: At World’s End,
released in 2007. Perhaps the Norwegian Directing team of Joachim Rønning and
Espen Sandberg figured that if enough special effects and swashbuckling were
thrown in, audiences might not worry too much about the pirate minutiae.

Even with its flaws and overdrawn series history Pirates
5: DMTNT is fun enough to pass as a little holiday weekend escapism. It may
not be as good as the original, but just like we keep getting back on the
Disneyland ride that inspired the first movie, it’s worth another try…barely.